Crimea 5AM: a few words from the playwrights
Image by Anatoliy Gayevsky
Natalka Vorozhbyt, Ukrainian playwright
I did not immediately agree to the commission, because I understood that I would not be able to go to Crimea and communicate personally with the families of convicted public activists. I was afraid that I didn't know enough about the subject, that I was far from their culture, that someone from the Crimean Tatars would do it better. On the other hand, the Crimean Tatars currently do not have many opportunities to speak loudly about what is happening to them and they need our and the world's support.
When we (playwright Anastasiia Kosodii, myself and director Dmytro Kostyumynskyi) were introduced to a journalist who lives in Crimea and who agreed to be our guide, we were relieved to get to work. No, it was not easy, but we received priceless interviews with the families of political prisoners from Crimea thanks to this brave journalist.
On the basis of these interviews, a documentary play was created using a montage method. These were mainly interviews with the wives. They were very different, but they had a lot in common. In addition to the fact that their husbands, public activists, were illegally sentenced by the Russian occupation authorities to huge terms, that they are being labelled as terrorists, that their children are growing up without parents in half-built houses... What unites them all is the time - '5 in the morning'. It is at this time, when a person is most defenceless, that Russian security forces break into buildings and carry out searches and arrests. That's how the name of the play came about.
“The Crimean Tatars currently do not have many opportunities to speak loudly about what is happening to them and they need our and the world’s support.”
But the story turned out not to be political, but very personal and lyrical. About ruined lives and hopes. Women discussed their loves and their sadness, remembered their first and last meetings, talked about a new life without support, about endless waiting. And yet, their steadfastness and faith was impressive, they did not allow themselves to despair.
The fate of the Crimean Tatar people has long troubled me. I often think about this historical injustice. First deportation, half a century in a foreign land, then such a difficult return, eternal building of their homes. And now after the annexation, persecution, again, in their own suffering land.
It was very important for me that the personal stories and living voices of those who became hostages of the Russian system were heard in the play. And that it evokes sympathy, trust and a desire to help.
Image by Chrystyna Khomenko
Anastasiia Kosodii, Ukrainian playwright
I was in Crimea only once and only for three days in 2013, before the Russian occupation. It was then that I had resigned from my first and incredibly humiliating job (the factory newspaper of the Zaporizhstal factory, which is part of the Metinvest holding - like Mariupol's Azovstal) and wanted to relax a little. We climbed the slopes of the Red Caves with friends, saw a mountain goat and mountain streams. I understood almost nothing about Crimea then.
In 2021, when the Ukrainian Institute commissioned us to work on this text, I got the chance to see the Crimea which no tourist brochure talks about, the Crimea of Crimean Tatars.
“In 2021, when the Ukrainian Institute commissioned us to work on this text, I got the chance to see the Crimea which no tourist brochure talks about, the Crimea of Crimean Tatars.”
The families of the Crimean Tatars, who had already survived forced deportation by the Stalinist regime in 1944, had to experience a second confrontation with the "Russian world" in 2014. The bravest - those who chose for themselves the path of public journalism and volunteering, ended up behind bars in Russian prisons, labelled as "terrorists".
Most of them are still behind bars, sentenced for 20 years or more.
Crimea 5am consists of the stories told by the wives, parents and children about unjustly imprisoned men, life without them - and a persistent, despite all logical arguments, hope for a better future, with the de-occupation of the peninsula and the establishment of historical justice.
Crimea 5AM is directed by Josephine Burton (Dash Arts) & will be performed by a 13-member cast at the Kiln Theatre on 16th January 2023.
This one-night-only performance is part of the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute UK/Ukraine Season of Culture.
Read more about Crimea 5AM and its heroes here.
